3 Natural Sleep Aids That Work!

In this article, I will talk in detail only about natural sleep aids that I know work for sure. How do I know? I have had personal experience with each of them, and am going to share my stories with you. Of course, we all are different, and what works for me may not work for you. However, these 3 natural sleep aids have helped not only me but have reportedly helped many others also. Thus you have a good chance to benefit from these remedies as well.

Let’s get started! The three natural sleep aids that work are:

• Valerian Root
• Melatonin
• CBD oil

I listed them not in the order of their healing power, but in the chronological order, in which I encountered them.

I will also recommend an amazing product that contains all three. There are other natural remedies that I truly believe promote healthy sleep, but I’ve never used them myself. I will name some of these after I tell you about my experience with the 3 listed above.

Valerian Root Sleep Aid

I grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia (it was Leningrad, the Soviet Union back then). My mother had to work long hours, and my grandmother was taking care of my sister and me. From my granny, I learned that the best rest during the daytime is switching types of activities, taking turns between work while sitting-down (doing school homework, reading, practicing piano, watching TV, crafting, sewing, etc.), and active work (playing outside, washing clothes, cooking, doing grocery shopping, etc.) Yes, cooking and washing were considered taking a rest as long as the previous activity involved sitting still.

I also learned from my grandma that valerian root tincture was the best calming natural remedy. My family used pharmaceutical drugs only in severe cases. We could buy many different herbs tinctures and ointments in any pharmacy. Before any stressful event such as an exam, stage performance or any new task that could make me nervous, my granny would suggest to take a few drops of valerian root with water, but not too much, because I needed to stay productive and not feel sleepy. When I needed a good night’s sleep before an important activity the next day, she would give me a few extra drops of valerian root because it should help me fall asleep quickly and sleep well. That always worked!

When we moved to the United States, I was surprised to find out that valerian root, calendula, ginseng, salvia (or sage), and many other herbs that every Russian family knew and used for the treatment of many ailments were not commonly known or available in my new home country. They were not sold in every pharmacy, and many medical doctors had not even heard of them. It was a part of the cultural shock to me that this country does not acknowledge ancient herbal medicine as “real” medicine. After almost 30 years living in the US, I got used to the idea, but it never made sense to me until I learned the story behind it. I now know that John D. Rockefeller is partly to blame and that money can rule even the way people think.

To me, using valerian root as a sleep aid is authentic, obvious… and nostalgic. Valerian is a lovely flowering plant. There is another explanation of why it is not well known in the US: valerian is actually native to Asia and Europe.

Melatonin Sleep Aid

I learned about melatonin many years ago because of my son, who is totally blind without light perception. When he was a little boy, he loved to play during the night time and then would fall asleep during the days. He was so happy riding his spring horse at 3:00 in the morning that it was difficult to discipline him without laughing with him. But these silly-happy nights would cause me serious sleep deprivation. I greatly needed sleep, as I was working around 60 hours per week during the years of establishing our new life in our new home country.

Have you heard of a circadian rhythm?
That’s our internal sleep/ wake cycle, which is running on our biological clock. The circadian rhythm is close to 24-hour Earth’s light and dark intervals, but not exactly the same. It gets synchronized with the Earth cycle by the daylight coming to the brain through our eyes. When it’s dark, the small pineal gland located in the center of our brain signals our body to release the sleep hormone melatonin. High levels of melatonin in our bloodstream making us feel tired and sleepy. With the morning light, the production of melatonin goes down and stops until the darkness returns with the next night.

Obviously, people who don’t have light perception, are unable to synchronize their circadian rhythm with the Earth clock. Over time, the gap grows between their internal sleep/wake cycle and day/night cycle on our planet. That’s why my sweet baby boy was awake and full of energy during the night time and exhausted during the days. This was about 25 years ago, and back then I had no idea why this was happening.

I learned the science behind my son’s behavior about 10 years later when he was a teenager. By then, he adopted the social behavior of sleeping during the night hours, but still, he seemed too tired during the days. I was concerned that the quality of his sleep was low and he was not getting the required rest even though he was in bed for 9-10 hours every night.

We went to see sleep specialists at the Boston Children’s Hospital. They explained to us the circadian rhythm concept and how it can be out of sync for someone without light perception. The doctor suggested giving my teenage son a very small dose of man-made melatonin (0.5 mg) every evening around 9:00 pm. He stressed the importance of giving the supplement at the same time daily. This half-pill of synthetic melatonin was meant to serve as a signal for the brain that it’s time to start the production of the natural melatonin. It seemed to help. My son takes half of a 1 mg melatonin pill every night at 9 pm and has done so for almost 15 years. I watched thankfully as his extreme tiredness vanished and his energy levels during the daytime seemed to be more or less normal for a young man his age.

I told you this story to make you understand that melatonin is not a sleep medication, but a hormone that our body produces naturally. Melatonin is also produced by animals and plants. There are also man-made melatonin supplements that can be purchased over the counter. In the past, melatonin for commercial production was derived from bovine sources. Later the synthetic melatonin was developed, and that’s what most suppliers sell nowadays. Synthetic melatonin matches exactly the chemical structure of the melatonin produced by humans, and it’s free of biological contaminants.

When our natural production of melatonin is abnormal in some way, the synthetic pills of melatonin could serve as a sleep aid. Of course, my son’s case is rare. Only about 0.5% of the world population is totally blind. However, melatonin could help a much bigger group of people: the aging people. For many of us as we get older, our ability to produce melatonin decreases. We may still make some, but not as much as we did when we were younger, and it’s just not enough to assure a full quality sleep. That’s one of the reasons older people often experience insomnia.

Synthetic melatonin does not seem to have serious side-effects. Daytime sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, headache, and agitation were reported during some studies, but the same side effects were reported by the placebo group, and therefore cannot be attributed to melatonin. Synthetic melatonin is much safer than any other sleep medication. It is recommended to consult your doctor before starting any supplement, including melatonin and CBD, which we’ll talk about shortly. You want to be sure that there is no interaction with the medication you take regularly.

If you are over 45 years old and your quality of sleep seems to decline, it’s worth it to try taking synthetic melatonin. Start with 1 mg pills and take one pill every evening at the same time. If after a week you see no results, increase the dose to 2 mg, then to 3mg. If in 3-4 weeks you still don’t see any improvement in your sleep, I suggest stopping the experiment as underproduction of melatonin is probably not the reason for your sleep disorder. If the 3 mg pill hasn’t helped at all, I would not raise the dose above that.

Some sources suggest that there is no danger even in a high dosage of synthetic melatonin. Other sources warn us that the natural production of melatonin could decrease more and even drop to zero if we supplement more than is needed to get to our personal normal maximum level. I was presented with this effect as a fact when my need arose for another hormone replacement therapy: Thyroxine or T4, one of the thyroid hormones.

The mechanism is simple: if levels of a hormone in your body are lower than needed, your brain signals the responsible gland to produce more. The healthy gland, whether it’s a thyroid gland, pineal gland or any other gland in our endocrine system, gets to work. If the gland is not healthy, it may not be able to produce enough of the hormone – that’s when the synthetic hormone is beneficial. But, if you take an artificial hormone in excess, your brain will signal the gland to stop working. So, the gland becomes “lazy” and may not work properly ever again.

The opinions on melatonin for some reason differ. Perhaps, the excessive external supplement does not damage pineal gland function because this gland does not produce the hormone continuously throughout the day. Every evening pineal gland starts releasing melatonin into your bloodstream and every morning it becomes idle. Since there is no evidence that pineal gland can or cannot stop working completely because of the excess of the supplement, some see no harm. But I wouldn’t put it to test on myself. I don’t recommend you to do it either. I suggest avoiding high dosage of artificial melatonin if a lower amount didn’t show any positive results at all in the quality of your sleep.  If you do see a partial improvement on a lower dose, then you may want to slowly increase the amount.

CBD Oil Sleep Aid

I encountered CBD oil for reasons mostly unrelated to sleep. Many years before it became legal in the United States, I learned how helpful it was with suppressing epileptic seizures for a child. A mother of a little girl couldn’t stop her daughter’s seizures with traditional medication. She heard of the healing features of CBD and fought for permission to give it to her daughter. She won, and once she started giving CBD oil to her girl, her seizures’ frequency reduced from several per day to one within a few months. So, when I came across CBD products in the summer of 2018, I had no general distrust or fear towards it. I knew that without THC, it was safe to give to even a child, and I knew that it helped with at least this one issue.

Let me tell you how CBD oil came to my own rescue. In August of 2017, I started an affiliate marketing business online with an amazing company called Wealthy Affiliate and became a part of its worldwide community of entrepreneurs. If you ever owned any business, you know that once you launched it and committed to it, there must be no stopping. If you break for several months, you’d have to start over again when you return. That’s what happened to me – I got sick. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Since March 2018, I couldn’t work at all: I couldn’t concentrate on reading or writing, which were the main activities in my online business. Among many other issues, I had brain fog, short memory problems, and felt exhausted during the days. At nights, I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time and then would wake up many times. My doctor prescribed me thyroid replacement medicine. My blood tests were soon back to normal, but my symptoms did not go away.

My colleagues and friends from Wealthy Affiliate noticed my absence, contacted me and invited to join CTFO – a direct sales company selling CBD products. The opportunity was free to join with no other obligations. I signed up not really knowing whether I’d be able to work. Slowly, I started learning about CBD and its many benefits and decided that I should try CBD oil to help with my health issues. I was mostly concerned with my concentration span and memory, but the first benefit of CBD I discovered from my own experience was improved sleep. In 2 days after I started taking CBD oil, I slept well again at night and didn’t have to take a long nap during the day. That felt fantastic! Thus, I know first-hand that CBD oil really works as a sleep aid. After two months of taking the oil drops regularly, my energy fully restored, the memory returned, and I was able to focus on my work again. 

If you browse this website, you’ll find a lot of information on CBD oil. But, as a quick note here, while CBD is very helpful with many ailments, it doesn’t cure all these medical conditions. Instead, it interacts with your biological endocannabinoid system and helps your body cure itself through restoring homeostasis (dynamic balance in all your physiological systems).

Top-grade CBD oil, when purchased from a trusted and reliable source, is as safe as any other herb and natural remedy. You still want to consult your doctor and find out if (s)he might have any concerns about CBD interaction with other medication you take. CTFO, the company I joined for free as an associate (and I am inviting you to join our team!), offers its own exclusive product 10x Pure CBD oil tincture ***, which is made hydrophilic by patented unique technology and contains elevated amounts of CBD-A, a raw precursor of CBD. Our bloodstream is used as a delivery vehicle for CBD molecules to the targeted area. This supercharged oxygenated oil easily dissolves in the water and thus, in the blood as well. Therefore, the hydrophilic property assures much higher potency and bioavailability of CBD.

CTFO Sleep spray

I was astonished to discover that the company I joined, CTFO, offers a natural sleep aid that contains all three of my favorite natural remedies plus Magnesium: CBD Sleep Support Oral Spray. I was immediately convinced that this product works. The only factor you need to figure out for yourself is the dosage. As always, start with a low dose: two sprays or even one spray under the tongue, and add more as needed.    

CTFO offers 60 days money-back guarantee; an open or even empty bottle is fine.

*** If you decide to check out CTFO products, please note that the “Preferred” price is the price you’ll get just for creating a customer account with CTFO. Higher “Retail” price is available for those who prefer to shop as a guest.  

To purchase your sleep spray today, please click the button below.

Final Note

There are many natural sleep aids that work. The three I told you about in this post definitely have helped me and my family members. We’ve tested them well over the years. Many of my friends found them beneficial as well. 

The Sleep Spray contains all three ingredients, and many CTFO customers reported that it’s an excellent natural sleep aid solution. 

Will these natural sleep aids work for you? Most likely they will, but we all are different. We all live different lifestyles. If you regularly go to bed before midnight, dim your artificial lighting about an hour before your bedtime, leave your mobile devices in another room, and sleep for 8 hours, your sleep would probably be good without any help at all. But if that’s not your case, the remedies listed above could be helpful. At the beginning of this article, I promised you to name a few other natural sleep aids, which I haven’t tested on myself, but they were backed up by science and reported as effective solutions by many users.

They are: 

• Magnesium (also one of the ingredients in the CBD Sleep Support Oral Spray)
• Lavender
• Сhamomile
• Passionflower (or Passiflora incarnata) 
• Amino acid glycine.

Some of us have serious medical conditions that may cause insomnia and must be treated separately from your sleep issue. In the case of a medical condition, using natural sleep aid is still better than pharmaceutical drugs, but there is less inevitability whether they will be helpful considering your primary diagnosis. The good news is that natural sleep aids are much safer, with mild and infrequent side effects such as dizziness. Therefore, the easiest way to find out whether they work or not is to try several and create your personal best sleep aid solution.

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Please share in the comments below what you do to sleep better. What’s your sleep schedule? Which remedies work for you and which have you tried but they weren’t helpful? Did you have any underlying health issues which caused your sleep disorder? Tell me your stories. I’d like to hear from you.